Articles Posted inWar on Drugs

In Europe, cacao has become a substance of choice for raves instead of using illicit drugs.[1] The chocolate is generally consumed in either an infused drink with agave and cinnamon, swallowed through a pill, or snorted through the nose.

The most popular place for partying with cacao is at Lucid, a monthly gathering in Berlin, “where music, dance, community and natural high vibes roam wild and free.”[2] The Chocolate Line, a Belgian company, popularized the inhaling of cacao powder when its founder, Dominique Persoone, introduced his chocolate shooter at a 2007 Rolling Stone party. [3] Persoone recommends that the powder be combined with mint or ginger to open and “tinkle” the nose, and that the powder must be cut to prevent caking and burning. Persoone has sold over 25,000 of his snorting devices.[4]

Demand isn’t for Hershey’s bars or cocoa baking powder, but for raw, virgin cacao which is pure and potent and not processed with milk and sugar. Even before the Europeans came to the New World, cacao was consumed and revered by the ancient civilizations. In the Aztec Empire, the seeds were used a form of currency.[5]

On August 25th, 2016, the DEA administer, Chuck Rosenberg, released a document announcing the agency would temporarily be placing Mitragyna speciose, commonly called Kratom, and its two primary chemicals, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, on the Schedule I list of the 1970 Controlled Substance Act as of September 30th, 2016.[1] The DEA announced its decision after citing health and safety concerns relating to the opioid-like drug. The decision of the DEA comes two months after a report was released by the CDC citing an upswing in poison control calls with 660 reports relating to the plant between 2010 and 2015.

What is Kratom?

Mitragyna speciose otherwise known as Kratom is a deciduous and evergreen tree in the coffee family native to southeast Asia, Thailand, and Malaysia[2]. Kratom contains opioid like compounds mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine which act upon opioid receptors much like morphine.

2017 Held a lot of promise for marijuana reform. Texans across the state and political spectrum flooded legislator’s offices and phones with a clear and concise message, “We want marijuana law reform now.” Unfortunately, as the session ended, it became clear that the Texas legislature was deaf to the voice of the Texas people.

The Groundwork

The push for marijuana law reform during the 85th Texas Legislative session began back in 2016, when advocacy groups focused on laying the political groundwork for marijuana law reform. Advocacy groups worked hard to amend the Texas Republican Party platform[1] to call for a complete overhaul of the Texas Compassionate use act of 2015, Texas’s anemic medical marijuana program. Advocates also hit the streets supporting and donating to pro marijuana reform candidates during the 2016 election cycle. As 2016 ended, the groundwork for real reform had been laid, and advocates across the state were optimistically looking forward to the 2017 legislative cycle.

In April 2016, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced it was reconsidering marijuana’s current list as a Schedule 1 Drug in the Controlled Substance Act. This announcement was met with skepticism and cautious optimism. The decision of the DEA to reclassify marijuana in the Controlled Substance List would allow national marijuana reform to circumvent the large hurdle of congressional action.

The State of Federal Marijuana Law

Currently, marijuana is illegal at the federal level under the Controlled Substance Act which defines marijuana as a Schedule 1 Drug. These schedules are characterized as:

The harmful practices of America’s “war on drugs” have taken a toll on the lives of countless Americans, yet only recently has a new repercussion of the drug war come to light.

The yearly cost per incarcerated prisoner in many states far exceeds the yearly expense (per pupil) of educating students in public schools. With most states overburdened by swelling prison populations and unable to devote necessary resources to education, the country will have difficulty clawing its way out of the hole created by ‘drug war’ policies.

The growing number of incarcerated persons in American prisons is due to the ‘tough on drugs’ policies of the late 20th Century. As Kathleen Miles of The Huffington Post points out, the number of inmates in prison for non-violent, drug-related offenses represents more than half of the American prison population. This number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased rapidly over the past half century – up from 16% in 1970.

Is Childhood trauma the root of addiction? According to Dr. Gabor Maté, yes. The Canadian physician believes that the origin of addiction can be traced back to a painful experience in childhood. He argues that addicts suffer from hurt and stress that can come from violence, abuse, addiction in the family, neglect, and other discomforting experiences. Dr. Maté’s stance on drug addiction posits that the drugs themselves are not causing the addiction, but that psychological or physiological stresses are. His 2010 book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, highlights his theory that if we only address addiction as a disease, we do not treat addiction at its core. Dr. Mate is one of the proponents of ayahuasca-assisted treatment to help his patients address the root source of addiction.

Ayahuasca – The Hallucinogenic Tea

What is Ayahuasca-assisted treatment? It is a form of psychedelic-assistance which helps patients relive and address trauma they experienced as children. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic tea made from Amazonian tree bark and has been used by shamans for centuries. Ayahuasca is legal in South America, but only legal in the United States for certain religious groups. The Supreme Court ruled that the União do Vegetal, a religious group with Brazilian origins, can use the brew for its religious services. A limited but thought-provoking number of studies suggest that ayahuasca provides a remedy for addicts. The Ayahuasca-Assisted Treatment for Addiction was the first observational study in North America. Conducted in British Columbia, Canada, the published results showed that patients, who were treated with ayahuasca for substance abuse, reported a decline in the use of alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine. The patients also gained psychological benefits, feeling more hopeful and empowered. The study’s results suggest that more research should be done on ayahuasca-assisted treatment. Although studies suggest that ayahuasca can be used for drug addiction, PTSD, and depression, its active ingredient, DMT, remains a Schedule I controlled substance in the U.S., and in 2011, the Canadian government ordered Dr. Maté to stop treating his patients with ayahuasca tea.

The government intercepts the phone calls of suspect criminals through the use of a wiretap. Wiretaps are search warrants that allow a law enforcement agency to eavesdrop on phone calls or internet communications (E.g. cell, land line, Skype calls). Law enforcement agencies can only eavesdrop after they obtain a court order from a judge authorizing them to listen in on certain conversations. In order to obtain a court order, the officer must file an application with the court requesting authorization from the court to conduct a wiretap. The application is an essential part of the process and is subject to strict compliance with 18 U.S.C.A. § 2518.

The first requirement is that the investigative or law enforcement officer making the application be identified along with the officer who authorized the application. This requirement is important for a couple of reasons. First, there are strict disclosure laws that prohibit liberal sharing of wiretaps. Officers cannot freely discuss wiretaps with whomever they want, even if they are talking to other officers. The disclosure must be permitted by statute. Second, it identifies the law enforcement agency that is conducting the wiretap. Particular agencies can conduct wiretaps for certain reasons. Certain agencies investigate certain crimes; not all crimes are subject to wiretap surveillance either. A law enforcement agency must be investigating a crime that is enumerated under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2703, and the crime must be one that the agency investigates.

Despite a relatively low crime rate during the last decade, between 1970 and 2010, Texas’ prison population increased by 995%, even though the state’s population only increased by 124% during that same time period. However, Texas’ record-setting incarceration rates are not accidental–meaning this trend can still be reversed. Critics of excessive legislation and prosecutorial strategies such as mandatory minimum sentences stress that our excessive prison population is a direct result of the Texas Legislature constantly criminalizing new acts. Over the last decade, the Legislature has created an average of 40 new felonies during each legislative session while simultaneously increasing penalties for existing crimes. At present, Texas recognizes over 2,500 felony crimes.

Another prime contributor to Texas’ prison population explosion is unarguably the U.S.’s failed war on drugs. At this point, we can all agree that “prison therapy” is hugely ineffective in helping defendants cope with addiction. Considering the fact that over 70,000 people both enter and leave Texas state prisons every year, only 22% of which have been convicted of a violent crime. It should be imperative that we are taking steps to treat and reform inmates during their served time, rather than hoping that imprisonment itself is enough to deter addiction and future bad behavior. Treating a public health problem as a criminal problem is not going to end substance addiction, especially when past imprisonment keeps a person disenfranchised within their community, often without the ability to find a job or place to live. And all too often, the communities that are most impacted by this injustice are young minorities, with a new study finding that by age 23, 49% of black males and 44% of Hispanic males have been arrested, compared with only 38% of white males.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) revolutionized the War in Afghanistan. These drones allowed the military to perform a variety of operations while reducing the threat of injury to human soldiers. In the battlefield, it may be somewhat easy to rationalize the use of UAVs, especially against a foreign terrorist threat. Your feelings might dramatically change when you think about your local police force using UAVs to fight crime. This idea may seem a little bizarre and unrealistic. However, there are Texas counties currently allowing Law Enforcement to use UAVs and others who are engaging in UAV pilot programs.

UAVs enable the police to conduct unmanned surveillance over public and private areas. The main focus of UAV surveillance is to monitor or observe criminal behavior. While monitoring public areas is seemingly reasonable, the invasion of privacy UAVs present is cause for concern. For example, the Austin police department used a UAV in 2009. The Austin police department was executing a search warrant on a suspect’s house. The suspect was a drug trafficker and was believed to be heavily armed and dangerously. The police were concerned that the suspect was capable of shooting down a helicopter, so they conducted a sweep of the property with a UAV before executing the search warrant. This UAV, called the Wasp, was particularly special because it was the size of a small bird, which would be undetectable to the unwary eye.

Such statistics seem to highlight good reasons for the government to maintain the status quo of marijuana prohibition. A meaningful look, however, into the data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), the source for such emergency room statistics, reveals the full picture. A fuller understanding about the role marijuana plays in emergency room visits demonstrates marijuana is not actually a major cause for emergency room visits.